Broom Cupboard Ultimatums
by 00Verisimilitude00
Summary: Sick of their seemingly one-sided relationship, Ted gives Andromeda a choice when they find themselves having a serious discussion in a broom cupboard. One-shot


**A/N: Hi all, so this is a one-shot consisting of Andromeda Black, Ted Tonks and a broom closet. **

**It will be part of a series of one-shots consisting of canon pairings and broom closets. I have already written Neville/Hannah, Teddy/Victoire, and Ron/Hermione fics, and I'm in the middle of a Rose/Scorpius one. I am planning on writing L/J and Remus/Tonks. Ending up with my lucky number 7 in all.**

**Reader Discretion: This is rated T, and so there will be _no_ graphic sex or even any sex at all. This is entirely to not put off younger readers and it goes for all my one-shots in this entire series. **

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"Oof!" Ted Tonks breathed as he was tugged roughly into a broom closet on his way back from Charms. "Andromeda?" he asked, squinting into the darkness to see who had ambushed him.

"Who else?" came the snotty reply.

"Lumos," he muttered, lighting up the tip of his wand. The steady glow illuminated Andromeda's beautiful face, pale and surrounded by a wavy halo of shiny mahogany hair. She looked surprisingly nervous as she stared up into his eyes.

"What are you playing at?" Ted asked her, annoyed. He reached up to place his wand on a nearby shelf, lighting up the dusty, cramped broom closet.

"It feels like I haven't talked to you in ages, Ted," Andromeda Black said quietly as she fiddled with the hem of her robes.

"Oh right. So now you play the abandoned girlfriend routine," Ted spat. He felt a cruel sense of elation as he saw Andromeda's face fall. Serves her right, after all. After what she did to him. After what she put his heart through.

"No, Ted, please," she pleaded, "You don't understand-"

"I don't understand what, Andromeda?" he demanded angrily. "Explain it to me; enlighten a poor Mudblood like myself-"

"Don't say that," she interrupted sharply.

"Why not?" Ted asked, eyebrows raised. "It's what all your friends call me, and you _never_ seemed to mind when they said it."

Andromeda looked positively horror-stricken. "Ted, I can't-"

"Can't what? Can't defend the boy who loves you? Can't believe that I had the nerve to fall for you? Can't help but feeling ashamed to be seen with me?" Ted said angrily, crossing his arms over his chest as he surveyed her.

"Ted, no- I- it's-" she started, fumbling with her words in her haste to get them out coherently.

"You wanted to talk, Andromeda, so start talking," he said, surveying her coldly.

She sighed, moving to sit down on an upturned bucket. "Look, Ted, I haven't seen you in ages, and I miss you, alright? You stopped meeting me, and you stopped saying hi in the hallways. I miss you and I feel awfully about what I've done. What my friends have done." Andromeda licked her lips and took in a ragged breath, "I'm sorry, Ted. I'm so sorry."

He raised an eyebrow at her apology. "Really? Because you didn't seem so sorry when I was being hexed to within an inch of my life last week by your so-called friends. Look, I know that you want to keep this thing we had-"

Andromeda's heart gave an almighty shudder that reverberated through her chest as she noted his use of the past tense.

"-A secret because of your family and whatever. But how could you do that to me? I l-loved you, Andy," Ted said, his voice breaking. "I thought you were the epitome of perfection itself." He gave her a wry smile. "So beautiful, so smart, so kind... And then," Ted's voice hardened, "when I was in trouble, when I was at my lowest, did you do anything? No, you just stood there and did absolutely nothing to help me, nothing to stop Avery and Malfoy from firing curse after curse... Not a word in my defence."

"Well, you put me on a pedestal!" she said once Ted had finished, "How was I supposed to live up to that?"

"Up to what?" he asked incredulously, "Up to being a decent person?"

Andromeda fell silent.

Ted ran a hand through his shaggy dirty blond hair. "Look, my friends can't figure out what I ever saw in you, the stuck up pureblood bitch. I now realize they had it exactly right. Have a nice life, Andy, and good luck in trying to find some wizard of your high status who will love you like I did." He turned to go.

"No, Ted, wait!" Andromeda said loudly, grabbing his hand on the door. "Just wait," she repeated.

Ted sighed and spared once glance at Andromeda's pretty face. "What now?"

"Don't go. I-I love you," she said quietly.

Ted closed his eyes and devoutly he wished he could forget what he just heard. Everything he had been wanting from Andromeda for the past four months was bundled up nicely into those three little words. No, he just couldn't accept that. She was just playing with his emotions like she had done ever since the beginning.

"Oh you do, do you?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes," she responded heavily. "I love you, Ted Tonks," Andromeda pronounced clearly, her calm resolve only betrayed by a slight tremor of her voice as Ted turned to look at her.

"If you love me, then why can't you stand to be near me?"

"You know it's not like that!" Andromeda said loudly. "Do you know what my family would do to you? To us?" She pushed her long hair away from her face. "If you think Avery and Malfoy are bad, you haven't met my sister," she said darkly.

"Narcissa? She's a bit self-centred, but certainly not dangerous," said Ted impatiently.

Andromeda sighed. "No, my older sister, Bella. Bellatrix, I mean. She was a seventh year while we were in second year."

"No, I don't recall her," he said slowly.

"She will hate you for no reason of all," she said bluntly. "Nothing you can do will change her mind, and there is nothing you could possibly say that would appease her temper if she found out we loved each other. That, Ted, is a prime example of my family, my bigoted, pureblood family," she finished bitterly.

Ted crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, that settles it," he said, his tone ringing of finality.

"Settles what?" she asked, eyes wide. "No, Ted, please, don't, you can't-" she said, voice wobbling as she fought to keep a reign on her emotions.

"You have to choose," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "Between me and your family. They'll never accept me, as you've clearly indicated, and as long as they are the forefront of your mind, I'll always come in second. I can't do that to myself. Also, it's unfair to you, keeping you with me while," Ted paused, breathing in slowly, "you should be with someone really worthy of you," he said in a rush.

"You're giving me an ultimatum between _you_ and _my family?"_ said Andromeda, her voice laced with disbelief.

"Yes, I am."

"But, you can't do that!" she said suddenly.

"I believe I just did. Now, if you want time to think it over, I understand," said Ted as he turned around to open the door.

"Oh you're not going anywhere," Andromeda snarled, grabbing his arm to prevent him from leaving once again. "I might love you," she said, inwardly she marveling at how easily the words fell off her tongue, but pausing only a minute before continuing, "but that doesn't mean you can't be first class git, sometimes, Ted." Andromeda let go of him to throw her hands up in the air in a gesture of frustration. "This is completely unfair. How am I supposed to decide between the family who raised me, who cared for me for seventeen years and the boy who I love more than anything?"

"I don't know," Ted said, looking at Andromeda's pleading face. "But you have to."

"I don't like this," she muttered, kicking a nearby bucket. "Ted, why are you making me decide?"

"Because you have to," he told her quietly. "Now, maybe a month from now, hell maybe even a year from now, you'll have to make this decision. It not going to be easy and it's going to be painful, but it has to be done. Face it, Andromeda. You cannot have a life with me and a life with your family."

"Bloody hell!" swore Andromeda, angrily looking around the small closet.

Ted remained impassive; he knew he must let her come to her conclusion on her own. He knew Andromeda was very devoted to her family, and he knew that they had only been dating a year, yet a small part of him had genuinely hoped that she would abandon everything and fly into his arms. His heart, which felt like it was being put through a blender, was thumping wildly in his chest and his hands started tingling with nerves as he listened to her inner struggle.

"How can I chose you?" Andromeda was saying to herself.

Ted's heart fell. Of course. It was only to be expected, after all. He felt a fleeting desire to escape, but still, he couldn't leave her, not like this. Not when everything was finally coming to a close. Shaking his head ruefully at his foolishness, he sat down on an empty box advertising Mrs. Scower's All Purpose Mess Remover and watched as Andromeda grappled with his question.

"You do know that if I ran off with you, they'd disown me?" she asked him sharply. "I'd be completely cut off, disowned and destitute?"

Ted raised his eyebrows. "Why the hell would that matter anyway?"

Her face softened as she looked at him. "I'd have to take a job somewhere that isn't owned by purebloods."

"Good. We'd be well shot of them."

Andromeda laughed, but then she abruptly turned serious. "Ted, as much as I love this picture we're painting of our future, I don't think we could do it," she said sadly. "We're seventeen for Merlin's sake. There's no way we'd ever make it on our own. Plus, who's to say you'll stay with me? Most relationships won't work, who's to say ours will?"

Ted jumped up from where he was sitting to stand right in front of her. "You think we won't make it? You think I'd make you go through all this, just to dump you a year down the road? If I had any inkling we would fail, why for God's sake would I ever do this to you?" He wrapped his arms tenderly around her and breathed into her hair. "There's nothing I won't do for you. I love you, and I don't think I could live without you. Please, have a little faith in me, 'Dromeda."

"Ted," she said, pulling away and looking at him clearly, "I know you have this all planned out in your head, but I still can't see it. But, with my family, they're secure. They have my future planned out for me. They know what's best for m-me." Her voice broke, and she buried her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes free of the tears that were rapidly welling up.

"Andy, you can't mean," he said in a strangled voice, as he tried to adjust to her abrupt change of attitude. Ted put his hands on her shoulders, trying to understand what was going on in her head. "No, but you were-" he started.

She cut him off and looked up into his worried brown eyes. "I know like things unplanned, that you rely on your instincts and leap without even considering the consequences, but I can't live like that," she confessed. "I need structure; I've never been without it. This thing we have, it's scaring me. I have no idea what we're doing, and I have no idea where we're going. I can't live like that, Ted."

"So that's it?" Ted said in a deadened voice. "We're done?"

"I suppose so," whispered Andromeda, a single tear falling down her cheek.

He leaned down to peer into her face. His grip tightened on her shoulders as he spoke. "Look, Andy, so what if you can't live like that? I know you're scared, hell I'm scared too, but it's not stopping me from taking a chance with you."

"Exactly!" Andromeda burst out angrily before he could continue. "A chance, Ted. You're asking me to leave my entire future up to chance, and I won't do it!"

Ted sighed as he released Andromeda. "You can keep living your nice orderly pureblood life with your pureblood family," he told her, a desperate tone to his voice, "or you can come with me and truly experience what life has to offer. You can't be truly happy sitting on the sidelines as a good little girl, Andy. I know you, you're too exciting, you're too curious, hell, you're too beautiful, to be saddled with some pureblood bloke your parents'll chose for you. Listen, I know we'll make mistakes, but we'll make them together. We'll learn from them, and then we'll move on. It's what people do. Live, Andromeda. Live with me," he pleaded.

"I can't," she said weakly. "I can't," she repeated.

Ted's eyes hardened as he took in her words. "Alright the, it's your choice," he said curtly.

"Think of what you're asking me to do," she said, "You're asking me to drop _everything,_ my family, my friends, my entire life, just for you! That's not a reasonable request!"

"I know that," he said irritably, "But the matter still stands that I would do the same for you in a heartbeat!"

"But you don't have to!"

"I'm being as understanding as I can be, Andromeda," said Ted softly. "But there are limits, especially when it looks like I'm going to get dumped in this cramped broom closet by the girl I was picturing a real future with, the girl who means everything to me. I can't just stand by and do nothing as you leave me, possibly forever."

"Don't-" Andromeda said, looking angry again. "Don't you dare-"

"Dare what?" Ted asked, voice rasied. "Try to convince you to stay with me? Point out the flaws in your brilliantly boring life?"

"Don't you dare make me fall even harder for you than I already have!" Andromeda burst out.

His eyes widened, and his mouth nearly fell open. His sharp retort died on his lips.

"I love you, and I'm done trying to talk myself out of it," she said with finality, after a moment. "I need you. I've lived without you for the two weeks, and I, as a selfish Slytherin, will orchestrate everything in my power to never feel that low again. It was awful. You know, I was this close," she held up her thumb and index finger an inch apart, "to begging you to take me back when I dragged you in here."

"I see," said Ted slowly.

She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. "There's not a single thing I wouldn't do for you," she whispered in his ear.

"Really?" Ted said in wonder, still trying to take in everything that was going on.

"Really," Andromeda repeated, smiling as she reached up to kiss him.

Their lips met, and immediately their mouths moulded to each other. They fit together, as if there hadn't spent any time apart. Eagerly, Andromeda threaded her fingers through his long hair to press his face even closer to hers. She felt him smile against her mouth, as he took a step forward, pinning her against the door of the broom closet. As they continued to kiss heatedly, Andromeda's hands moved to stroke lightly against his white oxford shirt. While Ted was tracing butterfly kisses along her neck, she began to hurriedly undo the first few buttons. However, she was only on the fourth one when his tongue reached a tender spot. Andromeda let out a low moan of pleasure, just as Ted's hand travelled up her thigh to rest against her arse.

He leaned closer against her, pressing his chest against the front of her body as he bent down to kiss the crook of her neck.

CREAK.

Unfortunately, this was when the thin wooden door gave way due to their combined weight.

They clumsily fell to the floor in the middle of the hallway, limbs tangled and hair mussed. They lay there for a moment, trying to get their bearings. "Merlin," Andromeda heard Teddy breathe out as he stood up.

"Ow," she muttered, taking Ted's proffered hand and rising to her feet.

"Andromeda?" came a shocked voice from a little ways off. She jerked her head up from dusting off the back of her skirt to see Mercy Gamp marching toward her with an angry look on her face. "What the hell were you doing in there?"

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ted give her a worried glance.

"Honestly, what does it look like I was doing?" she drawled.

"If I didn't know better, I would say you were consorting with _him_," she said, eyeing Ted distastefully for a split second before returning her gaze to Andromeda. "A Muggle," Gamp elaborated.

Andromeda rolled her eyes. "He's a wizard, if you haven't noticed."

"Mudblood is as good as Muggle."

"Er, right," Andromeda said in a bored voice, turning to Ted, whose expression was growing more grim by the second. Was she having second thoughts? Was she going to run off like she always did? Questions and self doubt swirled in Ted's mind in the split second before Andromeda spoke.

"Come here," she muttered, grabbing his hand and closing the foot or two difference between them.

"What are you doing?" Ted asked her in a low voice, casting a wary eye over Gamp who was fuming over being ignored in favour of a 'Muggle.'

"I am not doing this half-arsed," said Andromeda primly. "We are doing this right, and I want no misunderstandings."

"But what are you-"

Ted didn't get a chance to finish, as at that precise moment Andromeda grabbed the untied ends of his Hufflepuff tie to pull his face down and snog him thoroughly.

Ted, who hadn't been expecting anything of the sort, froze for a moment, before Andromeda pinched him slightly on the arm. She felt his chuckles reverberate through his chest, and his warm breath on her face as he opened his mouth to her willing tongue.

"Mr. Tonks, Miss Black!" came a sharp voice after a minute. "What is this? Fifteen points from Slytherin and Hufflepuff! Improper displays of affection in the hallways!" McGonagall continued to shout.

Neither of them paid her the slightest bit of attention.

Ted was too busy trying to wrap his mind around that he was snogging _Andromeda Black_ in _public _to listen to McGonagall_, _while Andromeda had simply let everything around her fall away, as she enjoyed life for the first time of many with Ted Tonks.

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**A/N: So I haven't been continuing the Broom Closet series for a while, but let it be known, this marks off the beginning of the second wave! Yippee! Er, sorry for those people who were waiting a "Compliments" update. Nothing is going to appear anytime soon, guys. Sorry. **

**Yes, I know this wasn't the all time favorite pairing you guys like me writing (check poll, if you want to see who takes the cake) but how was it? Please review!**


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